A contractor has said it was reviewing the way it works following complaints about the time being taken to complete a street lighting scheme in St Neots.

Balfour Beatty said it was slightly behind schedule for the project, part of a major contract to replace all Cambridgeshire's street lighting.

But Cllr Bob Farrer claimed poor organisation and planning had led to trenches around lighting columns remaining open for several weeks.

He said Cambridgeshire County Council had not supervised the work sufficiently.

Cllr Farrer, who is on the town and district councils, has raised concerns with Balfour Beatty, and has met representatives of the firm.

He said: "I do not think it will be done in time."

The scheme is part of a county-wide PFI lighting project designed to make big cost savings.

Cllr Farrer said: "People are getting fed up with being messed about for weeks on end with everything being left unfinished. The main problem is poor organisation and planning."

He said they way in which different teams were used to install, remove and make good contributed to the problem.

Cllr Farrer, a former county councillor, said: "Why wasn't the county council supervising this? They are the authority, they can't walk away from it and they are the highways authority as well."

A spokesman for Balfour Beatty said: "The works programme we undertake in Cambridgeshire takes approximately six to eight weeks from start to finish. St Neots is the largest town within the county and we are slightly behind schedule.

"We have listened to the concerns of both local residents and councillors and we have had supervisors on site daily with regards to snagging issues around barriers and works in process.

"With regard to the works programme, we are constantly reviewing our working practices and we are hoping to reduce this time on future phases.

"We appreciate that this is a large project and we do try to keep the disruption to a minimum. This is sometimes unavoidable as we are working on the highways."

A county council spokesman said they were monitoring the work which was in compliance with the contract.

He said the scheme was a big task, involving the replacement of 56,000 street lights.

The spokesman added: "We apologise for any inconvenience the work has caused."

Comments

The words "PFI" and "big cost savings" rarely go together accurately in the same sentence. Unfortunately though it's part of the governments policy of keeping things off the book, despite having criticised PFI's when they first came into power.